Future Health Care In America: The Abyss Of Gun Rights
BY Herschel Smith
10 years, 11 months ago
There is movement on the issue of mental health and gun ownership, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First in order to set the stage, Michael Hammond writing at The Washington Times has done a good job of explaining the stakes.
The 1968 Gun Control Act bans guns for anyone who is “adjudicated as a mental defective or … committed to a mental institution.” Unfortunately, under 2008 NICS Improvement Act, drafted by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and its regulations, that “adjudication” can be made by any “other lawful authority.” This means a diagnosis by a single psychiatrist in connection with a government program.
In the case of nearly 175,000 law-abiding veterans, the “lawful authority” has been a Department of Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, who, generally, will take away a veteran’s guns by unilaterally declaring him incompetent and appointing a guardian over his financial affairs. Certainly, the findings can be appealed, but most veterans don’t have the tens of thousands of dollars to hire lawyers and psychiatrists to do so.
Although the problem hasn’t yet been as apparent in other areas, police and firemen on Social Security disability for post-traumatic stress disorder, Medicare seniors with Alzheimer’s, and people who as children were diagnosed under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act program with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder will ultimately face the same fate. Even a subsidized Obamacare policy might now make Americans participants in a federal program.
In fact, that process of expanding gun bans has now begun:
One gun owner in a virulently anti-gun state was placed on the gun-ban blacklist because many years ago, police, without the approval of any court, put him in a mental facility overnight. The facility found nothing wrong with him, but that didn’t stop his state from recently turning him in to the FBI for a lifetime gun ban.
In another case, a gun owner in an anti-gun state lost his guns because of a prescription for a psychiatric drug.
Bob Unruh explains how this happens with veterans.
The problem arises when the agency wants to appoint a fiduciary – someone to advise a disabled veteran or one receiving certain government benefits – to help with the management of the benefits.
The government then routinely notifies the FBI’s NICS system, a federally maintained list of those whose competency has been challenged. That means they no longer can purchase a gun or even keep the one they may have.
Michael Connelly, executive director of the USJF, told WND the initial lawsuit is to compel the VA to respond to two requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
“The information requested included Veterans Benefits Administration rules, regulations and criteria for making ‘determinations of incompetency due to a physical or mental condition of a benefit recipient,’” the legal team explained.
“The USJF has received numerous complaints from military veterans around the country who are being declared incompetent to handle their own financial affairs and then told that they can no longer purchase or own firearms or ammunition,” said Connelly. “This determination is being made without due process protections for the veterans and the basis for the incompetency ruling is often arbitrary and without a factual or legal basis.”
Just a month ago, WND columnist Jeff Knox warning about Obama’s newly announced strategy.
And just a few days ago Mike Vanderboegh provided strong evidence that this is happening on a wide scale. Returning to Bob’s article, he asks the important questions. “As with most things, the devil is in the details. What is mental illness? Who is mentally ill? How mentally ill must one be to warrant revocation of a fundamental human right? Who makes that determination? Who is ‘normal,’ and how ‘normal’ do they have to be to own guns?”
Now to what David Codrea reported just today about the movement afoot to make the problem even more sweeping in scope.
In a chat session this month with the liberal magazine Texas Monthly, Cornyn revealed he and Lindsay Graham will introduce a bill strengthening the NICS federal gun owner registration database and place more Americans on lifetime gun ban lists.
There are no doubt good people who believe that such a thing is good for public safety. Cornyn and Graham aren’t among that crowd. They know better and would sell the souls of their own mothers if it would be beneficial to their careers. It isn’t to them that I speak. Nothing can change them, and so the only remedy for us is to change their jobs.
We’ve dealt with this before, this notion that the mental health profession is like any other, that it can pull the right levers, punch the right buttons, and administer the right drugs to fix mankind. But listen to them in their own words.
Dr. J. Michael Bostwick, Mayo Clinic: “We physicians generally do not know enough about firearms to have an informed conversation with our patients, let alone counsel them about gun safety.” He continues by arguing:
- Even if every mentally ill person in the country were registered, the system isn’t prepared to handle them — and only about half of the states require registration.
- Only about 10 percent of mentally ill people are registered — and these are people who have been committed, they’ve come to attention in a way that requires court intervention.
- Literature says the vast majority of people who do these kinds of shootings are not mentally ill — or it is recognized after the fact.
- The majority of mentally ill people aren’t dangerous.
Dr. Richard Friedman: ” … there is overwhelming epidemiological evidence that the vast majority of people with psychiatric disorders do not commit violent acts. Only about 4 percent of violence in the United States can be attributed to people with mental illness.”
Dr. Barry Rosenfeld: “”We’re not likely to catch very many potentially violent people” with laws like the one in New York.”
Dr. Steven Hoge: “One reason even experienced psychiatrists are often wrong is that there are only a few clear signs that a person with a mental illness is likely to act violently.”
And National Journal notes the following.
Perhaps most important, although people with serious mental illness have committed a large percentage of high-profile crimes, the mentally ill represent a very small percentage of the perpetrators of violent crime overall. Researchers estimate that if mental illness could be eliminated as a factor in violent crime, the overall rate would be reduced by only 4 percent. That means 96 percent of violent crimes—defined by the FBI as murders, robberies, rapes, and aggravated assaults—are committed by people without any mental-health problems at all. Solutions that focus on reducing crimes by the mentally ill will make only a small dent in the nation’s rate of gun-related murders, ranging from mass killings to shootings that claim a single victim. It’s not just that the mentally ill represent a minority of the country’s population; it’s also that the overlap between mental illness and violent behavior is poor.
I won’t continue since we’ve covered this in detail before. To my readers who believe that this has anything to do with public safety, you need to be dissuaded from such foolishness. This has nothing to do with the decreased rate of forcible admissions to mental health facilities, and nothing to do with an increase in mental health problems, and nothing to do with the availability of guns. And it has nothing to do with turning out patients from the asylums, no matter what you’ve been told.
Crime is a moral choice. I know this is uncomfortable for some of my readers, because it forces you to think about things like value judgments and the roots of morality. It all has such a deontological ring to it, and it suggests that mankind may not just be the product of primordial slime – that there is someone to whom we must answer.
But I don’t care one iota about your discomfort. The mental health profession simply cannot sustain the weight of burden you wish to place on it. It cannot tell you who will do what, or give enough medications to fix what ails mankind. It cannot control individuals who are moral agents making their own choices.
And those who would rule us know this too. They know that the mental health profession cannot function in this role, and yet the sweep of the proposed rules keeps increasing, the dragnet keeps expanding, and the Senators keep going along to get along. So what does this tell you about why they want to expand the mental health dragnet? When will you be adjudicated mentally defective because you believe that being armed is the surest way to ameliorate tyranny in America?
On January 10, 2014 at 8:43 am, Phelan Kell said:
“Crime is a moral choice.”
You are right, that sword cuts both ways. Choosing to obey unconstitutional laws, or laws that violate Natural Law are as much a crime as murder or rape. If I am to commit a crime I know whose Righteous Judgment I fear.
Americans need to start acting on our belief in Justice and Rule of Law and resisting Tyranny when it comes to our door, or our brother’s door regardless of the mortal costs, because someday we will stand before God and have to answer for our cowardice.
If we don’t stand together, we will surely hang separately.
Keep up the great writing!
May He have mercy on us.
On January 10, 2014 at 10:27 am, John Bernard said:
The reality is, every single one of us could be assigned one kind of adverse diagnosis or another. Given that we are human, living in a fallen world, surrounded by stressers that can trip any one of us at any time places the entirety of the human population in the category of a “risk to society” – not the least of which are they who seek political office and the power/authority it wields.
So who is the greater threat; he who assumes to know all, chooses to control all, desires to cordon the Constitutionally defined rights of men or the citizen trying to navigate the corridors of government intrusion while simply trying to feed his family, and live?
In the end, this is not new to mankind and the fantasy that this country would manage to overcome the impulses of those who have preceded us, is just that; fantasy. That we have lasted this long is a good measure of the leniency God has shown to us.
And yes; it will be a national shame and a sin accountable to each of us if this country spirals into the depths of debauchery and slavery that has been the legacy of every single nation that has ever existed.
On January 10, 2014 at 10:59 am, Sherlock said:
Regarding Obama’s SOVIETIZATION of the mental health system:
(1) Every real mental health professional should be screaming holy-hell that Obama’s actions will drive People in need, underground and away from seeking help. His is the most IRRESPONSIBLE IMAGINABLE act ……
——– What other PRIOR CONDITIONS will Obama arbitrarily use AGAINST YOU?!
To what Purpose?!
Talk about OBAMAcare demanding insurance companies “accept” PRIOR CONDITIONS —-
(2) Obama clearly wrote that he SELF MEDICATED with ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES for his UNRESOLVED MENTAL ISSUES. Read his book(s). Anyone at all should be able to glean enough to —-
People in GLASS HOUSES should not throw stones ….. and the Obama psych is a GLASS HOUSE.
(3) EX-POST-FACTO …. Obama is penalizing People for acts they undertook prior to his ILLEGAL move.
On January 10, 2014 at 11:41 am, MamaLiberty said:
The definition of “mentally ill” is as broad and variable as is the definition of “beautiful music.”
Seems we all should remember that the push for “gun control” using mental illness as a wedge is not driven by safety or concern for anyone involved, but is purely using another scare tactic, a boogyman monster, to drive the wholesale, if not universal disarmament of every person who might actually wish to preserve individual autonomy and their right to life. The whole purpose is control of the population by the self annointed elite.
As a clinical psychologist, I can assure you that mental health professionals are incapable of either predicting or adequately treating those who would harm others. even with involuntary commitment and forced drugging. The “war on mental illness” would be no more successful in removing violence from society than the “war on some drugs” has been in preventing people from consuming whatever they want. The actual damage done to people and society as a whole would be, however, even more terrible. And that’s saying something.
On January 10, 2014 at 5:59 pm, jimmythepizza said:
The use of antidepressants used in treatment of ailments other than depression has grown enormously. I can see a time coming when a person’s gun rights are revoked because he was prescribed an antidepressant to treat insomnia or irritable bowel syndrome or some such thing. Look at all the kids( boys mainly) that have been forced to take meds for ADD or hyperactivity. I don’t think it’s a leap too far to think they could be restricted as well!
On January 10, 2014 at 7:08 pm, SWIFT said:
The “voices” told me to resist this anti-gun insanity, so I took my pension check and bought another gun. The electric and water bill can wait.
On January 10, 2014 at 8:04 pm, Cool8free said:
“When will you be adjudicated mentally defective because you believe that being armed is the surest way to ameliorate tyranny in America?” should be endorsed and posted on banners, billboards and bumperstickers. It is worthy of a 30 second commercial spot during the Superbowl……..maybe then the masses would notice what is happening around them. Sadly, the majority is unconcerned with this systematic erosion of our patriotic duties,rights and freedoms. Soon it will be a short walk from patriotism to being conveniently labeled mentally defective or a terrorist, set up, and charged with treason.
On January 10, 2014 at 9:13 pm, Rich said:
Mental health is the avenue to gun confiscation..
Politicians and Media push gun control in a dangerous and Dishonest manner…
http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/who-is-mentally-ill/
On January 10, 2014 at 9:16 pm, Rich said:
American Psychiatric Asso: Half of US citizens are mentally ill..
http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/american-psychiatric-association-half-of-americans-mentally-ill/
On January 10, 2014 at 11:07 pm, dan said:
clean’em, load’em, stack’em, prepare to use’em….as we are shown that all else has failed
On January 11, 2014 at 7:28 am, avordvet said:
and BTW… This Veteran’s gun grab was updated in 2007, signed into law by GW Bush, and fully supported by the NRA.
Gun owners ‘get stabbed in back’
‘Veterans Disarmament Act on way to president’
Published: 12/23/2007 at 1:00 AM, WND
“In fact, over the last 30 years, GOA and its staff have worked with NRA to facilitate most of our pro-gun victories…” the group said. “But those who staff the NRA, without consulting the membership, have now made a series of strange and dangerous alliances with the likes of Chuck Schumer, Carolyn McCarthy, and Pat Leahy. And we believe that, if allowed to continue, this will produce anti-gun policies which the NRA staff will bitterly regret.”
http://www.wnd.com/2007/12/45199/
Veterans May Suffer from the Veterans Disarmament Act
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008, Posted by Jere Beery
The Department of Justice, FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, and many other law enforcement agencies are currently downloading information from the VA on veterans who ‘the VA’ has determined to be mentally incompetent and therefore at risk to buy or own a firearm. Yet, unbeknown to many, this practice has been going on for years.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2008/01/08/veterans-may-suffer-from-the-veterans-disarmament-act/
Bush signs bill geared to toughen screening of gun buyers
By Richard Simon Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, January 8, 2008, 7:46 p.m.
WASHINGTON — A rare piece of gun legislation finds the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence on the same side, and President Bush signed such a bill Tuesday
http://www.latimes.com/la-na-guns9dec09,0,1832110.story#axzz2q5lMjBiJ
On January 12, 2014 at 12:54 am, Andy said:
More socialistic agenda coming our way , there is a storm coming in this nation that will hopefully turn things around , I for one am ready to join this storm and get things back right again ! Be prepared and ready.Keep your powder dry.
On January 12, 2014 at 9:10 pm, Mike said:
If you DO believe in the following you are mentally defective:
The Constitution (That’s a dead document, written long ago, that doesn’t apply now).
The Bill of Rights (See above).
Personal Responsibility (It’s other peoples fault for your situation, so that’s crazy talk).
Using the word God (He’s a fantasy figure that you believe is real. That’s nuts).
Using the word patriot (You don’t believe in the government, so you’re up to something).
Trying to protect and provide reserves for you family (You’re a hoarder. Mental problem).
If you DO NOT believe in the following you are mentally defective:
Big government (Entitlement programs don’t run themselves. Thinking something gets done with no direction, you’re not thinking right).
Entitlements programs that reward people that don’t really need them (See personal responsibility above).
Redistribution of MY money to others without my consent (stealing) (See personal responsibility above).
That we should continue to take care of the do nothings in Washington (See Using the word patriot, above)
Giving recidivist maggots dozens of chances (See personal responsibility above).
I could spend the next month on this response, but you get the point. Stay frosty, and alert.